(I first my apologize to my classes yesterday for two things: first, I
was not serious about your last papers having to be written in the
hypothetical Ursprache of Tlon. Second, “catoptromancy” was the word I
was looking for.)
Chapter 20 of Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer is entitled “Father
Inire’s Mirrors.” The protagonist Severian is remembering a story that
Thecla had told him about a visit her friend Domnina paid to Father
Inire after he saw her see something strange in a mirror. (The fact that
Thecla, through xenopharmaconecrophagy, is now part of Severian should
not be ignored, however; though he told this story before that happened,
he had not yet written it.)
A short
review
of Richard Parker’s biography of Galbraith contains the following:
If that interpretation construes the facts in a light favorable to
Galbraith, Parker is consistently so inclined. Yes, he concedes, many
economists consider Galbraith not really one of their own in a
discipline that extolls mathematical models and aspires to the
scientific rigor of physics. For example, Parker quotes MIT’s Robert
Solow, who terms Galbraith ‘‘fundamentally a moralist."
But Parker sees nothing wrong with Galbraith’s blend of economics and
moral conviction. On the contrary, he would put Galbraith in a pantheon
with John Maynard Keynes, whom Parker describes as the ‘‘model of the
economist as an engaged and politically purposive intellectual."
Is there any doubt that the best moment of Skidelsky’s Politicians and
the Slump is the caption to the photograph of Baldwin looking
particularly sententious between pp. 82-83 that reads “Mr. Baldwin has
invented the formidable argument that you must not do anything because
it will mean that you will not be able to do anything else?”
Libby Mayor Tony Berget said he even took a piece of the mine’s
asbestos-contaminated vermiculite with him on a high school wrestling
trip to Europe, delighting his companions when he set fire to it and
caused a loud “pop.”
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not here supporting Wilde’s
thesis that “nature imitates art” although that too has its
justifications–I am told that no “co-ed” can be kissed standing
without raising one foot behind her since the movies have popularized
that technique.
Brown, Harold Chapman. “Advertising and Propaganda: A Study in the
Ethics of Social Control.” International Journal of Ethics. 40.1 (Oct.
1929): 42.
This New Yorkerarticle brought
to mind something I’ve been thinking about of late. With the worldwide
prospects of torture on the considerable rise, it occurs to me that the
development of analgesics, perhaps subcutaneous or dental, that cause
pain to be perceived as hallucinatory or what C.D. Broad calls
“extraspective” images might be either being developed or at least
conceptualized. The intensity of the visualizations would correspond
with the intensity of the pain, so you might see something of lasting
influence while having your hand boiled in Uzbekistan, for instance.
My logs tell me that the readers of this site comprise five people and
fifty robots, so I figured I’d call upon their vast store of knowledge
to ask the following question: what novels (or other) can you think of
that depict a society in which enlightenment epistemological principles
have been supplanted by revelationism but, paradoxically or
accidentally, scientific progress has still continued? Dune seems like
a maybe here, and I can’t think of anything else right now.
Compose a flash fiction involving Freud, Schopenhauer, freezing
porcupines, and the 1st ed. treatment of the spell abjure (may be
substituted for others like beyond the twentieth known iteration).
I don’t know if it’s customary to start these by example, but I will
not. Not yet.